Retailers frequently attempt to motivate customers to make repeat purchases at the retailers' establishments. One form of such attempts involves enrollment of customers in a frequent shopper program with the retailer. Certain frequent shopper programs are well known and widely practiced by many retailers. These prior art programs typically provide a reward to customers when they meet certain purchasing criteria or goals. Through such programs, retailers may increase their customer base and market share by inducing customers to purchase a certain level of goods and/or services over a predetermined period of time. For example, a retailer may offer a reward to a customer (i.e., a “frequent shopper”) who purchases $100.00 of goods and/or services in a month.
Such frequent shopper programs tend to result in larger retailer sales since a customer has the incentive to make all or many of his or her purchases through the one retailer offering a reward, rather than making purchases through competing retailers. The customer thus may become loyal to the retailer in an effort to meet the retailer's purchasing goals so that he or she may earn the reward.
However, in prior art frequent shopper programs, the retailers are at the mercy of the customer's personal motivation to meet the retailer's purchasing goals and obtain the reward. A customer may, at his or her whim, choose to forgo a reward by failing to meet the established purchasing goal. A customer's choice to forgo the reward thus results in a loss of potential sales to the retailer. Even if a customer were to incur a penalty for failing to meet a purchasing goal, a customer's personal willingness to incur the penalty or forego a potential reward results in a loss of potential sales to the retailer. Thus, a need exists to better motivate a customer to meet a purchasing goal of a retailer in order to earn a reward, thereby generating more completed sales for the retailer.
The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art and may be understood with reference to the drawings and description thereof provided herein.